Morphology and syntax

Much of the inflectional apparatus of the ancient language is retained in Modern Greek. Nouns may be singular or plural—the dual is lost—and all dialects distinguish a nominative (subject) case and accusative (object) case. A noun modifying a second noun is expressed by the genitive case except in the north, where a prepositional phrase is usually preferred. The indirect object is also expressed by the genitive case (or by the preposition se ‘to,’ which governs the accusative, as do all prepositions). Thus:

The ancient categorization of nouns into masculine, feminine, and neuter survives intact, and adjectives agree in gender, number, and case with their nouns, as do the articles (o ‘the,’ enas ‘a’). In general, pronouns exhibit the same categories as nouns, but the relative pronoun pu is invariant, its relation to its own clause being expressed when necessary by a personal pronoun in the appropriate case: i yinéka pu tin ídhe to korítsi ‘the woman pu her saw the girl’ (i.e., ‘the woman whom the girl saw’).

The verb is inflected for mood (indicative, subjunctive, imperative), aspect (perfective, imperfective), voice (active, passive), tense (present, past), and person (first, second, and third, singular and plural). The future is expressed by a particle tha (from earlier thé[o] na ‘[I] want to’) followed by a finite verb—e.g., tha grápho ‘I will write.’ Formally, the finite forms of the verb (those with personal endings) consist of a stem + (optionally) the perfective aspect marker (-s- in active, -th- in passive) + personal ending (indicating person, tense, mood, voice). Past forms are prefixed by e- (the “augment”), usually lost in mainland dialects when unstressed. There are also two nonfinite forms, an indeclinable present active participle in -ondas (ghráfondas ‘writing’), and a past passive one in -ménos (kurazménos ‘tired’).

Aspectual differences play a crucial role. Roughly, the perfective marker indicates completed, momentary action; its absence signifies an action viewed as incomplete, continuous, or repeated. Thus the imperfective imperative ghráphe might mean ‘start writing!’ or ‘write regularly!’ while ghrápse means rather ‘write down! (on a particular occasion).’ Compare also tha ghrápho ‘I’ll be writing’ but tha ghrápso ‘I’ll write (once).’ The difference is sometimes represented lexically in English: ákuye ‘he listened’ and ákuse ‘he heard.’ The passive forms are largely confined to certain verbs active in meaning like érkhome ‘I come,’ fováme ‘I am afraid,’ and reciprocal usages (filyóndusan ‘they were kissing’).

The most common form of derivation is by suffixation; derivation by prefixation is limited mainly to verbs. On the other hand, compound formation is rich. Three morphological types of compounds can be distinguished, as reflected also in their stressing—thus, stem + stem compounds—e.g., palyófilos ‘old friend’ (o is the compound vowel) or khortofághos ‘vegetarian’; stem + word compounds—e.g., palyofílos ‘lousy friend’ (compare fílos ‘friend’); and the newly borrowed formation, word + word compounds—e.g., pedhí thávma as English ‘boy wonder.’ There is no infinitive; ancient constructions involving it are usually replaced by na (from ancient hína ‘so that’) + subjunctive. Thus thélo na ghrápso ‘I want to write,’ borí na ghrápsi ‘he can write.’ Subordinate statement is introduced by óti or pos (léi óti févghi ‘he says that he is leaving’). Unlike English, Greek (because of its inflectional system) shows flexible word order even in the simplest sentences. Further, as in Italian, the subject of a sentence may be omitted.

Vocabulary

The vast majority of Demotic words are inherited from Ancient Greek, although quite often with changed meaning—e.g., filó ‘I kiss’ (originally ‘love’), trógho ‘I eat’ (from ‘nibble’), kóri ‘daughter’ (from ‘girl’). Many others represent unattested combinations of ancient roots and affixes; others enter Demotic via Katharevusa: musío ‘museum,’ stikhío ‘element’ (but inherited stikhyó ‘ghost’), ekteló ‘I execute.’ In addition, there are more than 2,000 words in common use drawn from Italian and Turkish (accounting for about a third each), and from Latin, French, and, increasingly, English. The Latin, Italian, and Turkish elements (mostly nouns) acquire Greek inflections (from Italian síghuros ‘sure,’ servitóros ‘servant,’ from Turkish zóri ‘force,’ khasápis ‘butcher’), while more recent loans from French and English remain unintegrated (spor ‘sport,’ bar ‘bar,’ asansér ‘elevator,’ futból ‘football,’ kompyúter ‘computer,’ ténis ‘tennis’).